I've spent almost my entire career as a journalist covering tech in and around Silicon Valley, meeting entrepreneurs, executives and engineers, watching companies rise and fall (or in the case of Apple, rise, fall and rise again) and attending confabs and conferences. Before joining Forbes in February 2012, I had a very brief stint in corporate communications at HP (on purpose) and worked for more than six years on the tech team at Bloomberg News, where I dived into the financial side of tech. Before that, I was Silicon Valley bureau chief for Interactive Week, a contributor to Wired and Upside, and a reporter and news editor for MacWeek. The first computer game I ever played was Zork, my collection of now-vintage tech T-shirts includes a tie-dye BMUG classic and a HyperCard shirt featuring a dog and fire hydrant. When I can work at home, I settle into the black Herman Miller Aeron chair that I picked up when NeXT closed its doors. You can email me at cguglielmo@forbes.com.

Should Apple CEO Tim Cook Hold An Analyst Day?

Apple CEO Tim Cook, who's been open about the company's issues, is being called on to become even more talkative.

Under CEO Tim Cook, Apple has been making an effort to be more responsive and upfront about answering questions about the company, a marked departure from the mostly “no comment” mantra of his predecessor Steve Jobs.

Cook, who took over as CEO in August 2011, participates in Apple’s quarterly financial analysts calls (Jobs joined in on just a few, making his appearance a notable event). Cook speaks at analyst conferences, and is, in fact, slated to appear at Goldman Sachs Technology Conference in San Francisco tomorrow (Apple plans to audiocast the event).

No doubt prodded by Cook, Apple, has also made statements on various issues affecting the company over the past year, including the auditing of its suppliers and Cook’s an apology over Apple Maps and his decision to reshuffle his executive team.

And just last week, the company put out a statement saying it was in “active discussions” to return more cash to investors after hedge fund manager David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital started a public campaign to challenge what he described as Apple’s cash-hoarding mentality because it’s essentially sitting on $137 billion in cash.

But even with that extra openness, Apple watchers say the company can do more. Today, Ben Reitzes of Barclays Capital called on Apple to consider hosting an analyst day, something it has not done since 2003. “With Apple reaching an arguably ‘mature state’ with revenues approaching $200 billion per year, we believe investors could use some guidance from the company about how its business model can deliver steady returns,” he says. “Apple could be well served by outlining its strategy since its brand is also linked to its stock price.”

Here are five things Reitzes would like addressed as a way of pointing “toward guidance at some point for consistent revenue growth and EPS growth in the double-digit range over the long-term – which could warrant a higher multiple. Right now we believe that investors are factoring in a sub-10% long-term EPS growth rate for the company.”

1. How Apple is a consistent platform company, with historical data to prove it – and how it could result in some kind of revenue stability.

Apple is a platform company and its next great innovations have to come in the form of software and web/data services. We believe these services are needed to keep Apple’s ecosystem ahead of the pack and to attract and retain more users. Apple needs to prove that its platform is what makes it much different from fallen angels like RIM (email prowess only), Nokia (manufacturing/scale) and Motorola (now owned by Google) – and more like Facebook, Amazon or Google…The maps debacle showed investors how valuable Google’s technology was – how hard it was to replicate – and how Apple may struggle as the world moves beyond iTunes toward cloud-based services. In short, we believe Apple needs to up its game in this arena…

We are hoping to see the seeds of this innovation when the company previews iOS 7 as early as March in an iPad launch event. We believe Apple can turn perceptions of its platform around with a real move into payments, an integrated iOS-led television service and improvements to iCloud (including subscription-based services)… Apple can link iOS and Siri better to the media experience – leading to the best integration (Samsung impressed us with its recent SmartHub vision, but we think Apple has the potential to make it work even better if it moves fast). Finally, we believe it is time for iTunes to enter the subscription services market, since youth clearly neither desires nor has the wallet to build massive iTunes libraries like their parents did. We find it hard to believe that iPhone users would switch to Android if their iPhone was a credit card, a TV remote and a conduit for iTunes subscription services. The types of services mentioned above could re-convince investors that Apple’s ecosystem carries a high switching cost and reinforce the value of an “iOS subscriber.

2. What Apple views as its Total Addressable Market or TAM – what markets it feels it plays in and/or what are the sizes of markets it looks to create.

Since Apple has created new markets that we didn’t even know existed throughout its history (iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc) – it would be pretty neat to see what it thinks its TAM is. We believe Apple’s total addressable market (TAM) is still very large considering what traditional markets it can disrupt and what else it can do. At the moment, we believe Apple has a $500 billion plus market opportunity with existing products, focusing only on the PC, smartphone and tablet market…

There could be several more markets coming that make the TAM much bigger like payments, television (with a TAM of $350 billion), some forms of advertising, more gaming and even iOS based wearable computing gadgets that speak to you.

3. A margin philosophy that brackets a gross margin range of 35%+ – and how it can be sustainable.

If Apple could make an argument that a mix shift toward higher margins software and services (noted above), along with its industry leading supply chain management could philosophically keep its gross margins in the 35% to 40% range, it could go a long way. Each point in margin equates to about $1.50 in EPS based on FY13 revenues – so this point really matters…

Recently investors have become very concerned that the rise of Android will pressure margins into the lower 30% range vs. the 38% range currently. The fear is that Apple is doomed to the same fate as RIM and Nokia – and the cracks are already showing…Investors need to be reassured that movements to the low-end of markets don’t necessarily mean margin destruction.

4. How Apple views cash – and how it can be used to drive dividend growth.

Apple may soon have to bow to intense pressure from shareholders to release more value from its growing cash hoard. If Apple’s revenue is set to slow, we believe it is the right thing to consider…

We believe that Apple has room to increase its total cash outlay for dividends and buybacks by 30-40% over the next 3 years without having to access overseas cash. We note that Apple had about $137 billion of total cash and investments including $43 billion of domestic cash and $94 billion of overseas cash. Based on these balances and our future cash flow estimates, we believe Apple could increase the size of its current 3-yr $45 billion capital return program ($10 billion completed by next week) by 30-40% – without needing to access cash overseas and incurring a tax liability.

5. How Apple views itself versus other similar companies.

Compared to other elite consumer and technology companies Apple is trading well below its peers on a forward twelve month P/E and cash flow basis. Apple’s earnings power appears undervalued. We believe even with concerns of long-term margin pressures, we hink Apple’s ability to drive strong free cash flow and quality earnings is under-appreciated.

For example, Apple is trading below blue chip industrial and consumer companies GE and Coca-Cola on an EV/FCF basis. In addition, Apple is also trading well below Google and EMC on this same basis. We believe it makes sense for Apple to be valued in comparison to blue chip companies like Wal-Mart, GE and Coca-Cola because it is a well established brand and platform that also brings in stable cash flow.

Retizes does admit it’s unlikely Apple will host an analyst day soon, but he says Cook will likely forced to address these issues as the stock continues to come under pressure and as Einhorn and other analysts press for more returns to shareholders.

As for Cook, he’ll be speaking out twice this month: first at the Goldman Sachs technology conference tomorrow and then at Apple’s annual shareholder meeting on Feb. 27 at its Cupertino, California headquarters.

Apple’s shares, which closed at $442.32 a week ago on Feb. 4, are up $5.87, or 1.2 percent, to $480.85 at 2:52 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq.

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Tim Cook and the other greedy bastard Execs at CrApple that condone using under-aged Chinese Laborers working 12 hr/ 6 days instead of school to MAKE ALL their crap, should SEE an Analyst some day ….. soon.